God's Timing is Always Perfect

Saturday, 21st August 2010

One of the biggest events in the history of the Loh family takes place tomorrow, and it's none other than the celebration of my dad's 75th birthday.

The idea of this party was mooted about as early as three years ago in March 2007, when we celebrated my mom's 70th birthday.  However, given that my dad is a doctor and a prominent church leader, the scale was expected to be different.  Whereas my mom's was a cosy affair with just 11 tables, it was anticipated that my dad's would be at least 25 to 30 tables.

I am therefore very grateful and thankful to God for His wonderful and perfect timing.  He had arranged such that I would Chair my company's Dinner and Dance in Feb 2010 and also co-Chair my company's Teambuilding event in May 2010 (of which I was put in charge of the gala dinner).  The experience He gave me from those two events in terms of coordinating with the keyboardist, photographer, banquet manager, sound engineer, cake delivery person, table arrangements, etc has come in extremely handy.  Thank you Lord Jesus!

I am also thankful that at the workplace, the annual audits for the countries that I have been put in charge have been completed, so I could take some days of leave off work in the past 2 weeks to put together the program for the evening.  This has been the most challenging but at the same time most rewarding part of organising this event. 

At first, I was thinking of doing a video montage, similar to the ones I did for my mom's 70th in 2007 and my wifey's 40th last year.  However, given the scale and significance of this party, the Lord impressed upon me that it should be more interactive in nature.  Hence, what has resulted is 75 powerpoint slides showcasing the various facets and interests of my dad, of which audience participation is going to be a key and integral part. You can imagine that there were hundreds upon hundreds of photos to sieve through and choose from, and I had to narrow it down to only 75 :-)

I am by nature quiet and conservative, so a video montage would have been the safer option.  However, God has been putting in me quite a bit of creative juices of late, and I have even started to enjoy speaking in public (thanks to the numerous opportunities given to me at my workplace where I have had to speak to an audience of 150-200, so addressing about 275 guests tomorrow night will be an incremental step up rather than a quantum leap).  Once again, God's timing is perfect!!!  Amen?

Anyway, some of the 75 slides (slides 1 through 11 and slides 69 to 75 to be more precise) have been put up on Facebook as a sneak peek into what is in store.  You can view them here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=195093&id=751059341&l=40d3ac27ad

The highlight of the program is called "75 Revelations about My Dad" and the 75 selected photographs as mentioned above will be used to unveil to the audience what my dad is to each of them. That's all I can reveal for now.  I will only upload the rest of the slides after the party so as not to spoil the surprise for the guests.

[Afternote: all 75 slides have now been uploaded to Facebook for your viewing pleasure]

Oh ya, and just in case you are wondering why there is a slide with a picture of my car in it (slide 69), this is because I intend to preach a "mini-sermon" on the significance of the numbers 7 and 5.  Heheh :-)

Thank you Lord for causing everything to settle nicely in place in time for the grand event tomorrow night.  I want to give all glory and honour to You, because unless You build the house, we labour in vain.  Praise you, Jesus!

Will blog about the party, so stay tuned :-)